18 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
18 lines
1.0 KiB
Plaintext
safecat is a program which implements D. J. Bernstein's maildir
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algorithm to copy stdin safely to a file in a specified directory. With
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safecat, the user is offered two assurances. First, if safecat returns
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a successful exit status, then all data is guaranteed to be saved in the
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destination directory. Second, if a file exists in the destination
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directory, placed there by safecat, then the file is guaranteed to be
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complete.
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When saving data with safecat, the user specifies a destination
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directory, but not a file name. The file name is selected by safecat to
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ensure that no filename collisions occur, even if many safecat processes
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and other programs implementing the maildir algorithm are writing to the
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directory simultaneously. If particular filenames are desired, then the
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user should rename the file after safecat completes. In general, when
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spooling data with safecat, a single, separate process should handle
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naming, collecting, and deleting these files. Examples of such a
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process are daemons, cron jobs, and mail readers.
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